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Thursday, February 28, 2013

Non-Catholics can’t possibly understand the connection truly faithful Catholics have to their pope. He’s not magic, he’s not a god, and oddly enough he doesn’t even need to be holy or even particularly inspirational … What he is, is this: a promise. He is a promise, made by the Incarnate Lord, of a visible leadership that will last for all time, beginning with the flawed, hot-headed, cowardly fisherman who sat at His right hand, and stretching down through the millennia to us today. “Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam.”

Final Angelus

Papa Bene, we will miss you terribly. Your ascent to the Throne of Peter eight years ago soothed our sorrowing souls after the crushing loss of Blessed John Paul the Great. You restored our joy! We thank you for your fatherly care, your gentle spirit, your keen intellect, your love of truth, your faithful service, your imitation of Christ. As you take your leave to pray for us and for the whole world, we will pray for you, too. We love you so.

It made sense when I later learned that Archbishop Sheen had been a household name in America for decades, hosting his own national radio and television shows, and even winning an Emmy. Non-Catholics admired and loved the man as much as Catholics, and my own wonderful aunt (a Protestant) still talks of him so fondly and watches his videos when she comes across them.

Archbishop Sheen died in 1979, and recently his cause for canonization was opened.

Anyway, in cleaning out my dusty bookshelves for Lent, I stumbled again upon the book, and I knew that I had found my Lenten reading. Eighteen years later, the material is as rich and stirring as I remember.

I would like to share the Venerable Fulton J. Sheen with you over the next weeks, by posting brief excerpts from each chapter, for meditation, though the excerpts surely do not do justice to the whole.*

The First Word:

"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

The Corresponding Virtue:

Fortitude

Fortitude is that virtue which enables us to face undismayed and fearlessly the difficulties and dangers which stand in the way of duty and goodness. It stands midway between foolhardiness, which rushes into danger heedlessly, and cowardice, which flees from it recreantly. Because Fortitude is related to bravery, it must not be thought that bravery is devoid of fear; rather it is control of fear …. It is in the presence of the fear of death that Fortitude reaches its peak; that is why the highest peak of supernatural Fortitude is martyrdom.

…

[Jesus'] first word from the Cross is not in self defense, not a protestation of His own innocence, not a fear of death nor a plea for deliverance, nor even a fear of enemies. Fear of death makes most men turn away from doing good. It makes even innocent men thoughtful of themselves as they proclaim their innocence to their executioners. Not so with Him. Fortitude reaches the peak of self-forgetfulness. On the Cross He thinks only of others and their salvation. For his first word is not about death, but about the good it will accomplish; it is directed not to His friends, His Apostles, or His believers who will proclaim His gospel, but to those who hate Him and His Apostles and His Church …. Often during his life He preached: "Love your enemies: do good to them that hate you" (Matt 5:44). Now that He is strong enough to ignore death, He the Conqueror bestows on His momentary conquerors the very thing they had forfeited by their sins -- forgiveness.

…

Of all the nonsense our modern world has invented nothing surpasses the catch-words or claptrap we give the unfortunate or the sick: "Keep your chin up" or "Forget it." This is not solace, but a drug. Consolation is in explaining suffering, not forgetting it; in relating it to Love, not ignoring it; in making it an expiation for sin, not another sin. But who shall understand this unless he looks at a Cross and loves the Crucified?

…

There is no challenging the fact that Catholics could get on better with the world if they were less Catholic. Not a single sentence can be found in the words of our Divine Lord promising you the love of the world because of your faith. But you can find a golden string of texts warning you that the world will hate you because you are His….

…

[I]f Catholics will not be strong in their love of Christ because of Christ, then let them be strong out of fear of the scandal of their weakness. The example of a bad Catholic is most often appealed to as a justification for evil. Why is it that the world is more scandalized at a bad Catholic than a bad anything else, if it be not because his fall is rightfully measured by the heights from which he has fallen?

…

[E]ntering into the Church lifts us into another world -- the supernatural world. It gives us a new set of values, a new objective, new ways of thinking, new standards of judgment, all of which are in opposition to the spirit of the world. The world with its hatred of discipline, its courtesy to the flesh, and its indifference to truth, cannot tolerate a life based upon the primacy of Christ and the salvation of souls.

…

Peace, we are just discovering, is in the identity of our will with God who wills our perfection. When we disobey His will we are not asserting our independence; we are mutilating our personality as we might mutilate a razor by using it to cut a tree. Being made for God, we can be happy only with Him. All our misery is traceable to that rebellion. All our peace is traceable to training the lower part of ourselves in service to Him. Hence the Cross, the symbol of that sacrifice inspired by love.

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*Note: The whole of the chapter discusses three types of souls who need the virtue of fortitude in order to have peace: "Those who suffer and mourn, saying 'What have I done to deserve this?'; those who possess faith, but who through a love of the world deny their faith or hide it; and those who do not possess the faith, but are convince of its truth and yet refuse to pay the price."

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

The most amazing, inspiring "David" I know is a thirty-something Nigerian woman. She is my hero. I do not want her to stand and fight alone.

When I published Obianuju ("Uju") Ekeocha's Open Letter to Melinda Gates and a follow-up last year, she was a stranger. Now, I call her friend. It is humbling, an honor. Not only because she is beautiful inside and out (she has more grace, humility, dignity, intelligence, and wisdom in her little pinkie than I have in my whole body), but because she is courageous in a way that should inspire the rest of us.

Sweet Uju was minding her own business, not looking for any trouble, home from a long day at the lab in England where she works as a scientist, when she happened to see Melinda Gates being interviewed on CNN, discussing her "non-controversial" project to flood Africa (and African women) with billions of dollars of contraceptive pills, injectables, and devices. It set something off inside Uju's soul, and though she wanted to, she could not remain silent. That night, she prayed a rosary and she wrote. She has not stopped writing, and speaking out, since.

passionately preserve and promote, through good information, this Culture of Life and Civilization of Love. It's hope and commitment is to present the real image of Africa, especially that of the African woman, who is valiant in motherhood even as she is vibrant in her deep faith in God Almighty who fills her heart with splendorous light and love of life.

Our little "David" has also inspired a ground-breaking event in Nigeria: Her bishop has asked her to organize a full pro-life conference! This request understandably sent her reeling, as she has no experience in putting on such a conference, and had no idea where or how to start. Looking to America (as the pro-life stronghold in the western world), she was soon working in collaboration with our own Nicole at Mom and Then Some (president of Delaware Right to Life; wife and mommy extraordinaire). The conference is set for May 30 - June 1.

This outside help is so important, for as Uju has said: "We don't have any good pro-life advocacy in place in most African countries and so we really are not prepared at all for this move by Melinda to plant the seeds of the Culture of Death."

If you don't want Uju to stand alone to fight the Goliath bearing down, you can help with your Lenten prayers and sacrifices. And since Lent calls us to extra almsgiving as well, I will make you aware of a very important need, if this conference is to be a success:

Human Life International's Brian Clowes, a pro-life heavyweight with years of experience and expertise to impart to the Nigerian people, is set to be a speaker. But unlike the other side -- which could fly every contraception peddler and abortion pusher to Africa on private jets if desired -- there is no money for his airfare. Once (if) he gets to Africa, he will be hosted by the diocese, but they cannot afford to fly him out. Two donors have already paid for about half his flight, but we still need the other $600 to $700 that is needed to cover Mr. Clowes' ticket.

They have $4.6 BILLION.

We scramble to find a few dollars for one airline ticket.

But that's okay. We can do a lot with a little. It's how God rolls, and we expect to be the underdog. He assured us we would be.

You know what's next, dear, smart readers: If anyone feels led to contribute toward Mr. Clowes' trip to Africa, perhaps even a very small amount for Lenten almsgiving, please let me know, and I will put you in touch with Nicole. My email is littlecatholicbubble@gmail.com. I think we can do this, and I am pretty sure that any donors to this cause will be blessed beyond words!

Should there be funds that go over what is needed for the ticket, they will be used to secure a speaker from Birthright International, who will teach African citizens how to start up pregnancy resource centers for women in crisis.

Let's help our "David", our Uju, on her God-inspired (and slightly terrifying) mission, which she never in a million years expected to be on.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

I have always loved Cardinal Arinze! And his words in this interview are just a delight to hear. If anyone is still anxious or concerned about the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, please listen to the words of this wise and holy man, skipping to the 3:00 mark if you don't have time for the whole five minutes! :)

It's been a long day spanning the whole spectrum of emotions, from the moment my daughter at college woke me up with a phone call (that is a scary thing… to get a call from your daughter before dawn!), to right now when I am about ready to drop into bed.

I have been talking with friends most of the day, both on the phone and on facebook, and I can tell you that we all were feeling shock at the announcement (the last time a pope resigned was 600 years ago!), sadness at losing a holy, gentle, brilliant, and faithful papa whom we love so much, and amusement at the reaction of the secular left wing media and populace.

Because I am utterly exhausted, I'm just going to mention a few things that stuck out to me.

Well, in case there was any doubt, we now have an ex cathedra announcement from the hierarchy of the New York Times:

"At some point, the church will accept contraception and female and non-celibate priests. Could it be in the next papacy?"-- Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times

Although I ought to be used to it by now, I still find the parochialism of liberal secular elites stunning. Their small-minded preoccupation with sex and gender is, in its way, amusing. A pope abdicates for the first time in centuries, and what immediately pops into the mind of Nicholas Kristof and his ilk? Contraception, women's ordination, and celibacy. Oy vey.

Also amusing is his uncritical--indeed unthinking--embrace of Hegelian-Marxian certainty about the trajectory of history. "At some point, the church will [embrace the ideology of the New York Times editorial board]. It just will, you see. History is open to no other possibilities. It's a done deal. Already determined. Kristof was no doubt prevented only by the character limit on Twitter from saying "the correlation of forces . . . . "

And sadly, Kristof is too culturally illiterate to realize that there are already some non-celibate Catholic priests (as there always have been), and that such a discipline is distinct from doctrine. But why should a journalist be expected to know such easily attained facts? Knowledge of one's subject matter and fair reporting is so yesterday!

Best meme of all time (or pretty darned close) was made by JoAnna Wahlund, and I hope it goes viral on every one of your facebooks and blogs:

It just really doesn't get any better than that!

Well, before I go off on too many of a million possible tangents (we can do that in the comments), let me link to a few posts from the past to get us inspired and informed about the office of the papacy:

The election of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI in 2005 was one of the most glorious, joy-filled days I have ever experienced. He is deeply loved by his flock, and he loves us back. He is gentle, loving, faithful, a towering intellect, a profound theologian, a holy priest of God. He is the Successor of Peter and the Vicar of Christ on earth. He is not just the pope of Catholics, he is the papa of the whole world. Every soul on earth has been put in his care, and he prays and works to shepherd each of us to our home in Heaven. We are so blessed. He will be sorely missed. But I am glad it is not our final good-bye.

And, let us begin now to pray for that man who will be our next Holy Father, for he is curious, anxious, and waiting just like the rest of us -- wondering on whose shoulders the awesome burden of the papacy will fall. He needs our prayers!

What a Lent this will be!

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Lenten rules refresher, here. (I will be cutting back on my blogging time for Lent, hoping to maximize spiritual fruit here in the Miller home!)

Also, one recent post of mine may have escaped your notice due to the pope's resignation, but there is an interesting discussion going on in the comments, here.

Monday, February 11, 2013

Dear Brothers, I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church.

After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry.

I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering.

However, in today's world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me.

For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.

Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects.

And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff.

With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.

Sunday, February 10, 2013

The 400+ comments on the last post attest to the liveliness of the debate, most all of it respectful! It's a fascinating read, and I encourage you to sit down with a cup of tea and read through the comments if you have time. Be sure to hit the "load more" link at the end of the first two hundred comments, and thereafter, to access them all.

Some comments really stood out to me, deserving of a second posting, so I'm reviving the old and rarely used meme:

First, a comment from our own Dr. Stacy Trasancos to Andre, an agnostic, on the question of whether the "brain" and the "mind" are different:

Catholic doctrine says man is created of body and soul. The body (which includes our brains) processes sensory data. The soul is comprised of our intellect (also called the mind) and will (also called the heart). Those two powers are what allow us (unlike all other animals) to reason, to think rationally, to choose to love or not love, to do good or evil.

Therefore, as Catholics, we do acknowledge that the mind is not 100% a manifestation of the brain. It is affected by the brain (i.e. being hungry will also make us grumpy), but no matter what sensory data we receive, we can override it with our intellect and will because they are immaterial things that exist beyond the body.

You can't have it both ways. Either you've got the gift of free will and free thought, or you don't. But if you DO, then you must think of higher things beyond yourself, and seek the truth of where that gift came from because your soul is eternally responsible for your choices.

This is a tough question to confront, but seeing yourself as more than a slave to your body is true freedom, and once you start to understand yourself and others in this way, so much about human behavior starts to make sense.

"And unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required…"

Isn't that beautifully simple? Not simplistic at all, but simple.

Stacy did it again later in the conversation, when speaking to an atheist, Longshanks (slightly edited here):

Longshanks,

There are huge problems with your philosophy, which only highlights the travesty of how Descartes’ philosophy is twisted.

“I think, therefore I am.”

You describe that each of us makes up our own objective morality based on Descartes' one-liner. While that may be how your mind in retrospect thought it worked, it is not how the human mind really works.

A newborn's first rational thought is NOT, “Gee, I exist! I can think. I am me, the someone that I am, is me.” No, they start out noticing the world around them, per Aristotle. They receive sensory data (I am hungry, I am cold, I am sleepy, I want my mommy) and they process it, eventually moving beyond the imagination (which is mental images of things sensed) to conceptualizing things with their intellect. (It is worth noting many adults today do not even know how to control their imagination so they can exercise their intellect.)

Only after some maturity does a child become able to, for instance, forego a meal even when he’s hungry to charitably give it to another person who is starving.

So, what you describe as the path to discovering objective morality is flawed. If that were true, no one would need to raise children and teach them to be virtuous and sometimes self-sacrificing for a greater good.

Using your interpretation of philosophy, they could just as easily grow up to be tyrants because they have convinced themselves that everyone else really did want to be ruled by them.

Descartes (who should have stuck with mathematics) tried to describe the mind-body as dualistic, sort of like his coordinate planes. The mind is one thing. The body is another. What you’ve got is the opposite of our friend, Andre, who has admitted he’s a zombie because he's not sure he has a soul.

With Descartes you have a mind that knows truth independently of the body and its senses, and you have people, like yourself, trying to fit your whole life into “I think, therefore I am” when you do not actually even remember your first thought. (Hint: It wasn’t that.)

That philosophy leads people to assume, again as you did, that you can know all truth by consulting your mind and listening real hard.

What we actually do is more as Aristotle described, and later St. Aquinas elaborated on in connection with Catholic theology. We are body and soul, inextricably intertwined. The senses feed the mind, and the mind can move beyond them. We saw circles, we discovered pi using our intellect.

Objective morality lies outside of us. It is something we stand under, look up and try to rise toward. That is what we call “understanding.”

What is the danger in going down the road of “objective morality is whatever I think it is”? We’re supposed to seek higher things beyond ourselves. The people who think they are in charge of objective morality are the ones in danger of the delusion that they are god.

If you didn't soak that all in the first time, read it twice, slowly, like I did. (And we didn't even have to pay tuition!)

To my mind, the most jarring comment from an atheist on the thread came after many folks on both sides referenced "meaning" in one's life vs. the "meaning" of life. I often stress the concept of "ultimate meaning" when making a point about human life in a theistic vs. atheistic world, and it has often caused confusion. This comment by Longshanks helped me understand why:

Who cares about "ultimate meaning?"

That phrase doesn't make any sense to me...

To which I responded:

Exactly. And it is everything to me. So, we hit upon the irreconcilable difference between the atheist and the Christian. (And why we often talk right past each other.)

The idea that a man would not care about the ultimate meaning of life is a foreign concept to me. And aside from God's grace, I don't know how to bridge that gap.

But all in all, it was a worthwhile discussion (even though I'm not sure the questions in the original post were answered?), and when I am rested up (oh, in about six months!), perhaps we can have another go at some of these great philosophical divides separating atheists and Catholics.

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I will leave you with an excellent clip from Fr. Barron's Catholicismseries (which you know I love for the number of times I've plugged it!).

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

The philosophy of the New Atheists and their adherents continues to perplex me, mow including a theme that I hear from atheists more and more frequently: Life, they say, is more beautiful and precious to them precisely because there is no God.

Here's some of what I've read, on this blog and elsewhere (all emphases mine):

"…we [atheists] know we're lucky to have this one life to live to the fullest we can."

"Just because when I die I'll be gone for good doesn't make this life depressing -- it makes it all the more meaningful because it's all we have."

"For myself, I don’t see [the finality of death] as a grim reality, instead I see it as something beautiful. Death is nature's way of clearing out the old, and making way for the new. It is the circle of life; at death I will be able give back to the very Earth that provided me with such joy for everyday living."[This is what Mark Shea refers to as the Disney "Circle of Life" philosophy.]

"And honestly to me, at this point, [the fact that there is no God] makes my kids that much more amazing and life more special!"

See, to me that makes zero sense. If I have chanced into an insignificant moment of life on a piece of rock in a mindless, impersonal universe -- where everything and everyone I love and cherish will end in ultimate meaninglessness and complete nothingness -- that makes life beautiful and I am lucky? I don't see it.

To my mind, the reasonable response to such a dark reality should be horror, despair, terror, hopelessness -- existential angst to the nth degree.

How could it be otherwise, if we really examine it?

Now, I could understand and intellectually accept if an atheist were to say to me: "Yes, the objective reality of our futures is bleak and dark and unthinkable. But since I'm here, I will make the best of things by seeking pleasure and comfort where I can. I will make the present bearable, even fun, to keep me from thinking of my and my loved ones' certain annihilation."

That would make sense to me: seeking pleasure in order to keep the despair at bay. But that is not what I am hearing from atheists. They are claiming today that because of their future nothingness, this life is better than if their lives had ultimate meaning and worth.

It makes no sense on its face, and it also begs the question: How do these comfortable, sheltered, well-fed, educated, recreating, productive First World atheists explain or apply the "beauty" of their view to the rest of the world?

I return to my standard question: What of the infant girl in China who is abandoned in a field and dies of exposure, knowing only pain?* Is her life "more beautiful, precious, and meaningful" because, instead of finding justice and eternal joy with God, she is existentially alone and utterly unloved in her short life of acute suffering?

Or what of the six-year-old boy tied to a filthy crib in a Third World orphanage, freezing under a thin blanket, sick and starving to death, never allowed outside to feel the sun, no one to cherish him… what is his value, absent a loving God? Does he feel the "preciousness" of his life, and does he see its beauty? Is he "lucky" to be on this one-shot wild ride, participating in this "Circle of Life" that atheists in the west so exalt?

How do these children, or any of the world's suffering masses, fit into the atheist's glowing picture, which now has been ratcheted up to being even more awesome, beautiful, and fulfilling than the alternative?

I am not implying that atheists ignore or make light of human suffering, because I know that they don't. But I am suggesting that this new line they are pushing is a fail. As a philosophy applied to all mankind, it doesn't make sense. As a subjective feeling, it appears born of desperation. If I am wrong, then someone show me -- while acknowledging the reality of final annihilation and the suffering of millions who will have known nothing but pain and loneliness -- how this godless universe is "more beautiful, more meaningful, and more special" precisely because of its godlessness. Show me (or show the readers, if I cannot be convinced) that it is not instead a dark, hopeless, existential nightmare.

I'll even stipulate, for the sake of argument only, that God does not exist.

Okay, go.

*A previous post addressed the subject here, but it elicited no satisfactory answers; I just finished reading through the comments again; that was quite a discussion!

Friday, February 1, 2013

There is no end to the love, beauty, and wisdom of the saints. Male, female, young, old, rich, poor, from every era, every nation, every walk of life, every circumstance, all transcendent in Christ -- we can never exhaust the treasures they have left us.

So, I'm just curious, and asking the impossible...

Of all the millions of words of truth, goodness, comfort, solidarity, charity, and grace that they have given:

What is your favorite quote from a saint?

My current favorite (just stumbled upon recently) is from St. Therese the Little Flower, and I find myself repeating it to myself and others, often:

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Mystical Rose

Pray for us!

I love clarity. I love logic. I love Truth.

Greetings!

I am Leila Miller (pronounce it "Layla"), a 40-something Catholic wife and mother of eight children, whose ages span from 23 down to 4. Two of our children are married, and I recently became a grandma!

I often tell folks that I love my "little Catholic bubble" of faithful friends and family. It's where I choose to live, in relative peace and joy.

However, the "bubble" is not exclusive! It's open to everyone.

I relish engaging the wider culture, and I do have a lot of opinions. If you read this blog, you will hear them.

Politically, I am a conservative. Theologically, I am a faithful Catholic who loves apologetics. For fun, I like to make matches between devout Catholic singles.